Our homegroup raised $1787! That's really great! On Saturday, we got together in the morning to make activity bags for bed-bound children at Oakland Children's Hospital. Afterwards, we did our DT, hung out, went for a walk to the beach where we had a standing long jump contest. Irene and Mike Ho won... and then we went to the WorldVision Experience exhibit, where we walked in the shoes of an African child dealing with the consequences of AIDS and hunger.
Sunday morning, we got up early in the morning and had a bowl of UNICEF-recipe corn meal, which is served to children around the world. Then we had breakfast burritos, and the look of joy on some people's face (ahem, John K.), looked like they were going to pass out from the tingling sensations on their tongue and in their stomachs. As a church, Gracepoint Berkeley raised $72,063.65!
We're so thankful for the opportunity to participte in 30-hour famine. We got to experience just a little bit of the hunger which is so prevalent throughout our world, help raise money for a worthy cause, expand our own sense of vision, and be a little more grateful for the abundant blessings we have.
Sadly, it's been surprisingly easy to locate stories of starvation and malnutrition around the world. The suffering is overwhelming, but in Jesus there is hope. Verse 1 of Psalm 32 reads: "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven." Around the world, groups like World Vision and Compassion International are not only providing food, but they are also providing the gospel. That is true blessing.
Malnutrition getting worse in India
By Damian Grammaticas
BBC News, June 10, 2008
Madhya Pradesh - Lying on a bed is a tiny malnourished child. Her limbs wasted, her stomach bloated, her hair thinning and falling out. Her name is Roshni. She stares, wide-eyed, blankly at the ceiling. Roshni is six months old. She should weigh 4.5kg. But when she is placed on a set of scales they settle at just 2.9kg. Roshni is suffering from severe acute malnutrition, defined by the World Health Organisation as weighing less than 60% of the ideal median weight for her height. There are 40 beds in this centre. On every one is a similar child. All are acutely malnourished. Wailing, painful, plaintive cries fill the air. This is the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre in the town of Shivpuri. You might think we are somewhere in Africa. But this is the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh - modern India, a land of booming growth. "The situation in our village is very bad," says Roshni's mother, Kapuri. "Sometimes we get work, sometimes we don't. Together with our children we are dying from hunger. What can we poor people do? Nothing." There are around 10 million children in the state. A decade ago 55% were malnourished. Two years ago the government's own National Family Health Survey put the figure for Madhya Pradesh at around 60%. So why is it going up? "It's basically inadequate access to food, poor feeding practices, poor childcare practices," says Dr Agarwal. In Madhya Pradesh the situation is compounded by two significant factors. For four years in a row the rains have failed, so food crops have failed too. And now global food prices have risen, stretching many families beyond breaking point.
It is shocking to find that in a country of about 13.9 million people, 4.6 million live under $1 a day. Because of this, many children in Cambodia will be trafficked or used for forced labor. 15-year-old student Roeun Ra, said his parents used to make him work by scavenging through garbage: "Many of my friends cannot go to school because their parents ask them to work for money," the boy said. Cambodian Children March Against Child Labour, ABC News, June 12, 2008.
Food inflation hits Cambodia's poor, threatens hunger, Feb 25, 2008
CHRANG CHAMRES, Cambodia (AFP) — On the long, gently sloping bank of Cambodia's Tonle river, Doem Lao chops half a dozen large fish heads in the early morning for the one meal that her family will eat that day. It is the 45-year-old farmer's fourth unseasonably cold dawn in this quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where her extended family has set up camp with others from their village in the southern province of Takeo. Like tens of thousands of rural Cambodians, they have joined the annual migration to the river to buy enough fish to make a year's worth of prahoc, a pungent fermented paste that is the only source of protein for many in the country's impoverished rural regions. But the rice they brought from home has nearly run out and the fish have yet to appear in the large nets strung across the river in front of their camp. The crude bamboo and metal mesh processing stalls on the riverbank are silent -- and February is the last month of the fishing season. A sudden drop-off in the numbers of prahoc fish has seen their price more than triple this year, up to as high as 50 US cents a kilogramme from around 12 cents, putting this most basic of Cambodian commodities out of reach for many.
For poor Cambodians, this means that in addition to losing their traditional staples like prahoc, they are not able to supplement their already meagre diets with other foods, particularly meat. "Everything now is so expensive," said a village woman, Bhum Sap, rattling off the current prices of chicken, pork and beef, which can cost as much as five dollars a kilogramme, a fortune for Cambodia's estimated 4.6 million people struggling to live on less than one dollar a day. For as many as 2.6 million people living in extreme poverty, the situation has been worsening over the last several years, which have been marked by poor harvests brought on by natural disasters such as flood or drought. "Too many Cambodians still suffer from hunger and malnutrition for some or most of the time," the World Food Programme (WFP) said on its website.
In light of 30-Hour Famine this week, I wanted to post a series of articles that capture the global food crisis. Over 100 million are being driven deeper into poverty by the "silent tsunami" of rising food prices. Haiti is one country experiencing such tragedy. As heart-wrenching as the story is, I am reminded that just a little bit of money can go a long way. Remember to keep seeking pledges!
“Haiti’s poorest reduced to eating dirt,” News.com.au, January 29, 2008.
Extreme poverty is forcing
Our first activity as a homegroup will be to join the rest of our church in the fight against world hunger. to observe the world food shortage, and the hunger crisis in so many countries, we're going to participate in World Vision's 30-Hour Famine. We fast for 30 hours, beginning Friday midnight to Sunday morning... and to raise money, we ask friends and coworkers to pledge money and donate to our cause. It's a great way to reach out to friends and coworkers, get them involved in some small way, or connect w/ them at a different level than we're used to.
And then on Saturday--the day we're actually fasting from food--we'll spend part of the day together in meaningful service to our community. We're going to be assembling activity bags for some of the bed-bound kids of Oakland Children's Hospital. We'll be doing this together w/ one of the Praxis groups, so it'll be a nice time not only hanging out w/ our own (new) group, but also w/ some of the Praxis peoples. Afterwards, we thought an educational component a/b our world situation would be a powerful experience, so we're going to WorldVision Experience: AIDS in Africa down in Fremont.
Even if you're away for the summer, you can participate with us!
Some of you might be thinking:
